Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help protect tenants from increasing property maintenance charges.

The Government's position is that service charges should be transparent, communicated effectively, and there should be a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong. That is why on 1 April, we set out a number of commitments in response to the call for evidence on 'Protecting consumers in the letting and managing agent market’ to regulate and professionalise the managing agents sector. We will be establishing a working group to take this forward, which will also consider how service charges and fees should be presented to consumers and to explore the best means to challenge fees which are unjustified. As part of this work, consideration will also be given to standards around service charges and how to include them in a statutory code of practice.